To the Editor:
Your elected officials have voted to send to referendum a Community Aquatic Center spending re-quest of $14,550,000 dollars for the building. Taxpayers should consider the following bef...
To the Editor:
On behalf of the Board of Trustees, I would like to thank Patty Prestera, a volunteer EMT and chair-man of the St. Patrick's Day Fundraiser event held this past Saturday at our ambulanc...
To the Editor:
The Newtown Volunteer Ambulance Corps would like to thank all the people who came out to support our 1st Annual St. Patrick's Day Dinner Fundraiser. It was a wonderful event to...
To the Editor:
To all voters in Newtown, you will have the opportunity to vote on Tuesday April 5 in a referendum to approve the building of a community center which will include a 50 meter pool, a ze...
To the Editor:
Thank you, Newtown residents, for engaging in the process to date on the community center proposal. We are glad to see so many residents actively participating in discussions and making...
To the Editor:
We would once again like to thank Virginia Hutch and Healing Sandy Hook Through the Arts for their generous donation to the SMART - Summer Music and Arts Program in the memory ...
To the Editor:
The Newtown Community Center Commission is thrilled to have so many Newtown residents engaged in the Community Center process, however recently there have been some misconceptions we'd ...
To the Editor:
I work for GE, and I have never been prouder of my company than when they donated $10 million dollars to build and $5 million dollars to operate a community center in Newtown.
I was thr...
To the Editor:
The traffic and safety study and recommendations from Frederick P. Clark Associates needs more resident involvement.  We encourage residents to contact Police Chief Via...
To the Editor:
The Legislative Council has given the green light for the eventual purchase of three more white elephants to add to the ménage known as Fairfield Hills. In a nearly unanimous vote, the ...
CT primaries are closed to voters not registered with the party's designation. Dems can't vote in Rep. primaries and, vice versa. Unaffiliated and Independent voters cannot vote in them. Keep primaries closed!
Bruce, welcome to the conversation.
Your recent statement after the storm — admitting that you should have communicated “faster, more completely, and more personally” — was fine as far as it went. But this is not just about one storm. It is about a pattern. You ran on openness, responsiveness, and transparency, even saying that “evasive answers or silence are unacceptable in government.”
The problem is that Newtown residents have been dealing with exactly that silence from you since you were elected.
Newtown’s Emergency Management page says the town, together with the Office of the First Selectman, provides “critical public information and warning” during emergencies. The town also rolled out CodeRED cellphone registration on March 24, 2022 so residents could receive emergency information directly.
So where were you when police were searching for missing 23-year-old Kateri Doty in January? Where were you during the brush fires near the Newtown town line in April? Where were you on April 22, when state police and Newtown police were searching for two people who fled an I-84 crash and a canine search moved into the Church Hill Road area?
Residents should not be hearing about a missing person, wildfire conditions, or police tracking dogs moving through backyards from Facebook, neighbors, or kids in town. They should be hearing from their town government.
This is not really about whether you personally press the CodeRED button. Or how many task forces you have created. It is about leadership. You are the First Selectman. You are responsible for making sure the town communicates clearly, quickly, and visibly when public safety is involved.
So yes, it is nice that you have finally acknowledged the problem. But the public did not need this storm to figure it out. We have been saying it for a long time.
Bruce, you were missing when the town needed to hear from you. The question now is whether this storm finally woke you up, or whether this is just another late apology followed by more silence.
The topic may be the same but the narratives every other week differ and I appreciate the installments. Rebuttals on factual content rather than focusing on form would improve the discourse.
Congrats to all the 275 graduates.
For context...class of 2005 had 360 students, the number of graduating seniors seemed to cap out in the late 2000's in the low 400's.
